"DO YOU SCHMELL SOMEDINGS
BURNING FRITZ ?” "MAYBE IT'S GÖBBELS FIRE
OF LONDON
(Copyright in All Countries.)
Precedents Premier Has Improved Upon
The reconstruction of Mr., so unencumbered - Mr. Attlee, business administration. There Churchill's Ministry may well re- Mr. Greenwood and Sir John were representatives of railways,
The rest, headed by textiles, coal, hardware, chemicals,: s, in the circumstances, or longish, political memories of Mr. Churchill himself, who func-newspapers, oil, margarina und
the great administrative shake-
an altogether happy one
mind those of us who have long, Anderson.
up which made history 24 years By E. C. Bentley
a
In December, 1916, Mr. Lloyd
of Defence in
To-day's Additional
sugar,
National Unity Then
*
And Now
was
his minions, in indulging who had in his time been branded Food; no Minister of Shipping, no chairman of the Port of London pect.
Never in all our history has
"prancing pro-consul."
י
First there been a time when it could
We have as Prime Minister "a statesman who has had enemies About the most obvious ago.
Many Spheres
enough in his. stormy. career; elemental phenomenon" George became Prime Minister, tions as Minister
where is there one to-day? His At the Admiralty was Sir Eric great predecessor of the last war whose "irresistible force" with the enthusiastic approval of addition to carrying the Premier- Geddes, fresh from railway to whose genius Mr. Churchill great majority of the nation, ship, are the Foreign Secretary. Auckland, of McGill University, hated from first to last by many
management. His brother, Sir has borne telling tribute can be calculated in ad- and proceeded at once to trans- the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who crossed as a member of the whe could not clear their minds vance is the tides and form entirely the organisation of the Minister of Labour, and the Canadian forces, became Minister of the vapour of party vindictive-.. those at once turn the
the supreme executive authority. Minister of Aircraft Production. of National Service, and Lord ness. The "sniping" of his Gov-
To look back upon the work of Their average age is 59%, mind to thoughts of the reform that followed is to realise
Rhondda, whose main experience ernment by an impotent but vocal lay in the Welsh coalfields, was opposition was among the most Channel and gales and new how much the country owed- to its author. Things that seemed
made Minister of Health. Lord depressing features of Parliamen- Ministries barges and bombs and only natural at the outbreak of
Weir was drawn from the engin-tary life in those days. Consider, again, the Depart-cering trade to be the first Air There was bitter fighting over British Navies and all: this war were unheard of then.
of State which There had been no War: Cabinet ments
such now are Minister, und Lord Rothermere matters,
as, Conscription, sorts of things that seem until Mr. Lloyd George created accepted as ordinary and indis- was the second Lord Cowdray, which in these times a people to be far beyond the con- the first one, consisting of, besides pensable features of our system whose interests were in the engin-schooled in the necessities of war himself, Mr. Bonar Law, as leader of administration. Before Mr.eering and oil industries, was has accepted with eagerness, as a trol of the German gen-of the Conservative party, Mr. Lloyd George came upon the given the separate post of Presi-matter of course. There was a not
inconsiderable Henderson, as a representative of scene there was no Minister of dent of the Air. Board,
body of opinion eral staffs.
Labour, and Lord Milner, as the Transport; there was no Air Mini- Lord Beaverbrook had his first that clamoured for "stopping the However, Dr. Joe and possessor of administrative talents ster; there was no Minister of experience of office as Chancellor war" long before a decision in our of the first order-a new recruit Labour; there was no Minister of of the Duchy. Lord Devonport, favour was even in distant pros- in these large and semi-by the new Prime Minister as a Minister of Pensions; no Minister Authority, was Minister of Food.
of National Service; no Minister Sir J. P. Maclay was the scientific threats, can cer-i Their average age was 56. None of Blockade or as the title now Minister of Shipping his own be said, as it can be to-day, that tainly plead that they of them had departmental duties, runs, of Economic Warfare; no province and Sir S. H. Lever the nation was of a single mind because these, it was thought, Ministry of Supply. A number shared with Mr. Stanley Baldwin upon a life-and-death public issue, are exploiting a good old might have interfered with their of Parliamentary Secretaryships, the duties of Financial Secretary and looked unanimously upon the the All these were head of the Government as German custom. Even in concentration on the work of since found to be indispensable to the Treasury.
supreme direction of the war for the working of their Depart-appointments of the new order, right man in the right place. the days of Bismarck Ger-effort. Lord Milner and Mr. ments, had not been established. and some were brilliantly success- Moreover, over all our public life in 1910 brooded the spectre of Mr. Churchill and his predeces- ful. man newspapers used a Henderson were, indeed, Ministers
Irish disaffection, with all its pro- without portfolio of any kind. sors in office since the end of Mr. For the carrying on of the
mise of miseries and horrors soon professorial approach to Mr. Churchill, it is clear, has Lloyd George's tenure of power present war the Government's net
to come; a prospect to sicken the the fee-fo-fl-fum business decided that this was a principle have been the inheritors of a vast has not been cast so widely. But hearts of those who had enough that had not proved its useful-new administrative apparatusMr. Churchill has among his of terrifying their oppon-ness. His new War Cabinet, now which could be, at need, turned colleagues Lord Woolton, the Food to grasp of the situation to foresee ents. There was a famous enlarged from six members to over immediately to the tasks of Minister, who has spent his life even a part of the outcome. What- case in 1870 which left eight, includes but three Ministers war on the great scale. For this in the direction of a great retail ever view may be taken of the we have indeed reason to be trading concern; Lord Hankey, nowadays, we are at least free of condition of affairs in that country most of the languages of example of the German thankful for the kind of warfare who has been in the secrets of a that permanent anxiety.
initiated by the Nazi Government number of Cabinets, but never in Europe with a phrase the passion for "talking big" of Germany has left us little time politics, holds an advisory post as The Premier's Greafest origin of which is now al- Unfortunately, they mis- for the Initiating of new depart Chancellor of the Duchy Sh John tures in the business of govern-Reith, called to office from the
Hour most entirely forgotten. translated the German ment.
headship of Imperial Airways, is When Mr. Churchill took office In discussing the impend- noun and made fun of the Yet such departures there have now translated by Mr. Churchill he told his countrymen, in an ing bombardment of Paris phrase as meaning the born. Most notable and success to the newly-created position of address that few of them will ever ful in the Ministry of Aircraft Minister of Works and Buildings forget, that Britain would continue the "Kreuz-Zeitung" had "psychological moment" Production. There is the Ministry and assuredly a Herculean labour, the war against barbarism "if
nwalts him.
necessary for years, if necessary. argued that one of the of time. The combination of Home Security, combined at
present with the Home Secretary- Lord Beaverbrooke, one of the alone." things that would have to of German pedantry and ship. There is the new-born leading agred in the newspaper There were not many who shar- be allowed for in timing French vivacity in the Ministry of Works and Buildings, world, has been an answer to ed his knowledge of the fatal facts the assault and produc- matter of mistranslation to the responsibilities of the prayer, as Americans say, in the on which that grim Intimation was First Commissioner of Works. And Ministry of Alvoratt Productioni founded. But when the worst had. ing the maximum effect has ever since left Europe there is, of course, the Ministry All these are men whom the war- happened there was but a single of Information; often a target for emergency has brought into offee. will throughout the nation, to on French citizens would with an imposing phrase bitter criticism, but certainly in and whose services the country support to the very last the lea- dership that had not flinched from be "das psychologische which, strictly speaking, dispensable in some form for the could ill have spared.
discharge of its proper functions. If we come to consider the warning them of impending cala- Moment," which actually means next to nothing at Mr. Lloyd Georgo it was who pictures of politics, the atmospheremity and peril and hardship. meant the psychological all-in which, of course, broke with a tradition held sacred of public life as it was in the days Mr. Churchill has waited many until then by introducing into the of the Lloyd George War Ministry years for his hour: it has come to momentum or factor. Fri-Fit resembles many of the high places of: Government men and as I le now, the contrast is him now with a fulness of honour volous French journalists all-Nordic efforts of Dr. who were without experience of striking indeed, To-day there is that the greatest and most fortu- ortaste for political life; men no organised Opposition: no, nor nate of statesmen known to his- seized eagerly on this new Joe Goebbels himself.
chosen for their proved ability in an unorganised one.
|tory, well might envy,
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